The Nebraska Legislature created the Metropolitan Utilities District in the early 1900s as a political subdivision of the State to provide water and natural gas to the metropolitan Omaha area.
The District is governed by a board of seven directors, elected by our customer-owners. The board meets the first Wednesday of every month.
Our mission is to provide customers high-quality and safe natural gas and drinking water at a cost consistent with sound management practices. |
Our first water treatment plant was built near the Missouri River in 1889 by a private company. Omaha received water and gas service from private water and gas companies until the citizens of Omaha became dissatisfied with high costs, constant ownership changes and poor service, and voted to take control and ownership of their utilities.
The Legislature created the Metropolitan Water District in 1913.
Five years later, state senators authorized the City of Omaha, which had acquired the gas system by condemnation, to assign the responsibility for operation of the gas system to the Metropolitan Water District. The name was changed to the Metropolitan Utilities District.
Today, we are the only metropolitan utility district in the State of Nebraska. Our strength lies in being a public utility, customer-owned and governed by a locally-elected board of directors.
As the fifth largest public gas utility in the United States, we provide a product and service at rates that are lower than area investor-owned utilities.
We serve natural gas to 217,575 customer-owners in Omaha, Bennington, Fort Calhoun, Springfield, Yutan and 85 percent of Bellevue.
We also provide safe drinking water to 202,820 customer-owners in Omaha, Bellevue, Bennington, Carter Lake, LaVista, Ralston, Waterloo and the Papio-Missouri Natural Resources District (which supplies water to Fort Calhoun).
In addition, we maintain 27,471 water hydrants throughout our service area for fire protection.
Besides providing natural gas and water to customers in the metro area, we also provide a cost-saving service to municipalities by collecting sewer use and trash fees.